"We should get our comrades to understand that the twofold basic task of the leading bodies of the Communist Party is to know conditions and to master policy; the former means knowing the world and the latter changing the world." -Mao Zedong, 1941, Reform our Study

Communist Party of Iran (MLM): “Prepare to bury the Islamic Republic!”

8 February 2010. A World to Win News Service. Following are excerpts from a leaflet by the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) of Iran. Dated 5 February, it was put out on the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the people’s uprising that toppled the Shah in 1979.

As millions of Iranian people all over the country await 11 February their hearts are beating hard.. Brave women and men are planning to turn that date into a decisive day. The enemy is also planning to stay in the field and not lose its perilous balance. The chants of “Down with the Islamic Republic of Iran!” will come from the heart and find echo in other hearts.

Over the last eight months the Iranian people’s anti-regime movement has significantly inspired the people of the Middle East and other parts of the world. They too are enthusiastically looking forward to 11February. The Western imperialists and Russia and China who are all as reactionary as the Islamic Republic are already speculating about “Iran after 11February” and expressing their concern about the “future of the Middle East and Iran” – which means concern about their interests in Iran and the Middle East!

This year 11 February comes after the Ashura demonstrations [26 December] that were a turning point for the anti-regime movement. In the Ashura demonstrations the people crossed the red lines drawn and imposed by Mousavi, Karoubi and other “Green” movement heads by chanting “Death to the Leader” [Ayatollah Khameini] and trampling on the religious character of Ashura. Those protests dealt a grave blowto the Islamic fundamentalist leaders that were imposed on our people from 1979, and announced their regime’s end. This event terrified the “Leader” ( of Islamic Republic) and those around him and provoked them to desperately look for absurd ways to avoid losing all their authority. Even Mousavi and Karoubi referred to the “anti-system” people with fear and once again stressed their loyalty to the Islamic Republic system. They went so far as to recognise the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s presidency, and offered a new round of negotiations and mediation between the two factions as a “way out of the crisis”. But it is too late. The people who have come to fully experience and grasp the antagonistic nature of the Islamic Republic cannot be dragged to the compromise table.

To stay in power, the ruling clique has no option other than to continue its suppression. But for political reasons it is not able to utilize all of its firepower. The dynamics of the situation are such that more suppression will give rise to a more militant and determined people, as well as costing the regime more of its base and support. On the one hand the leaders of the Islamic Republic’s reformist faction do not want the Islamic regime to be overthrown under any circumstances. That is why they are showing their willingness to compromise. On the other, they realise that if they do not adapt themselves to this new situation, they can expect a dark future. After the Ashura demonstrations, European states that have had 31 years of nearly uninterrupted relations with the Islamic Republic have come to the conclusion that the Islamic regime will not last long. So they have started to change their foreign policy. All the power centres on a world scale are contending and arguing among themselves about how to determine the future. Each seeks to have the maximum influence on Iran’s future. But the most important is that they know that now more than ever, in the complicated situation of this region developments in Iran will have an impact on the Middle Eastern countries and can make a mess of their plans and calculations.

The overthrow of the Islamic Republic is objectively on the agenda. But there is a bigger question that has not yet been resolved and which our party should put on the agenda of the veteran militants and the new generation: what is to be done in order not to repeat the bitter experience of 31 years ago? At that time millions of workers, intellectuals, peasants and the people of the oppressed nationalities (Kurds, Turkmen, Azari, Arabs and Baluchis) came together in a movement that overthrew the despotic monarchy. But the Islamic fundamentalist forces under Khomeini stole the leadership of the revolution. The world’s capitalist powers headed by the U.S. quickly opened the way for Islamic fundamentalists to seize power so as to prevent the people’s movement from developing a goal beyond opposing the monarchy and under the leadership of revolutionary communists shutting down the functioning of the whole system of oppression and exploitation.

The revolution was defeated. A religious autocracy replaced the despotic monarchy.

The same danger is threatening the people’s movement once again. Whether or not there is a repeat of that experience or other bitter experiences such as the constitutional revolution (1908) and the CIA-backed Shah’s coup (1953) depends on whether or not a communist pole will be constructed in the people’s movement, one with a clear and transparent programme for the future of our society (i.e. the class and socio-economic character of the future state), by a communist party that is not a remnant of the communist movement of the past but a vanguard of the future. A party that in conjunction with the people’s struggle will lead it and pave the way for the violent overthrow of the exploiter class. This 11 February should be the beginning of a revolution with clear answers to these three principal questions: What do we want? How can it be achieved? Under what kind of leadership can it be achieved?

To form such a pole the current people’s movement should become increasingly conscious. Our slogans and our demands should be a guideline for the overthrow of the Islamic republic, and they should reflect the future society – a society that has qualitatively different characteristics than the present one. Our methods of struggle should exhibit the seriousness and acuteness of class antagonism. The reformist faction of the regime and the intellectuals who support them warn the youth against non-peaceful forms of struggles and preach against the “disadvantages” of armed struggle. However, these hypocrites are well aware that the Islamic Republic system is protected by a military armed to the teeth and the criminal and horrifying security forces, and these reformists themselves are counting on the influence they have in the Pasdaran corps and army and other security forces.

The reformist factions, like all the reactionary rulers, see themselves as the only legitimate possessors of the right to hold and use arms, just as they see their own political power as the only legitimate one. But the interests of the majority of the people depend on whether the most oppressed people will be in the front lines and become the main forces of revolution and under a communist leadership seize political power — and based on that create a society that will be in the service of the majority of the people and controlled by the people.

It is not possible for “peaceful” forms of struggle to snatch political power from the grip of those whose deep economic interests are protected by arms and military forces. It is only through revolutionary war that people can shatter the military forces of the enemy and win political power. Preparation is required for launching a revolutionary war, and a section of advanced people should be conscious of its necessity and organise their force in this direction.

Turning the street battles into organised and planned battles is an important step towards such preparations. Shattering the Evin prison gates, punishing the regime’s mercenaries in the streets and neighbourhoods, the achievement of demands such as “Free the political prisoners” and “Abolish the compulsory hijab” [head covering] are all part of the struggle to overthrow this regime. In these battles masses will learn how to respond to the unjust violence with a just and uncompromising struggle, how to refuse to tolerate that violence and humiliation, and taste real life and its meaningful struggle.

This regime will be overthrown but it will resist until the last moment. So we should be prepared for the bloodshed by these criminals. That means the youth should be prepared to defend their people and their freedom by tooth and nail.

We should not let the regime’s mercenaries easily attack the people. We should not let these mercenaries kidnap youth from their houses or break into university dormitories and execute people in their medieval dungeons. We should not let them hang our youth, in public or in hidden places. We should not let them stone any more women to death. We should not allow their ears and eyes [intelligence services, basiji militia and snitches] rule in our living and work places.

In other words, we have to win our freedom and what belongs to us with our own hands, either with the gun or the fist.

The process of this regime’s fall has already begun.. Their horrifying regime was born on 11 February (22 of Bahman 1357) 1979. Let 11 February 2010 be the beginning of its death.

Let’s chant the slogan “Down with the Islamic Republic” and spread it far and wide all over the country. We should work so that the workers – men and women – pour out of factories and poor suburbs and join the crowds of the people and strengthen the waves of the people’s resistance and struggle. Let our communist youth with their bright red flags be the harbingers of a new future, a new political, economic and social system that carries the banner of the emancipation of the whole of humanity.

We cannot let the Green leaders chart the future or set its horizons. Otherwise, as over the last 31 years they will use deception and hypocrisy to strengthen the pillars that the Islamic Republic rests on.

The Islamic Republic’s machine, with its prisons, torture and execution, has been continuously grinding up the communists, freedom fighters, and striking workers, the youth who are frustrated by the lack of the work and a future and women who dare to refuse to wear the chains of slavery. But at last the streams of rage and hatred against all this oppression and injustice are turning into a storm that is going to bury the Islamic Republic forever.